Back In The Saddle Again

Hello all.  SeerK here after a long hiatus and a rather busy holiday season.  Planning for 2018 has been in full swing.  The gang will be heading out to Adepticon in March.  I was hoping to be able to swing going to the Rumble on Route 66 in addition to going to Adepticon, but sadly its not in the budget.  I have a wedding to save up for.  That's right I am now engaged as of October.  This has put a bit of a kibosh on my convention travels.  I am attending Adepticon, Origins, Gencon, The Iowa Incident MK5, the Michigan GT and U-Conn Games Convention in 2018.  Still a decent amount, but not as many as I want to go to. I would love to do some more Dire States Infinity events as well as some more conventions on the east coast, near the west coast and down south.  These would namely be the NOVA Open, The Las Vegas Open and The aforementioned Rumble on Route 66.  There are several big Infinity Tournaments on the list as well. SO I left you kind of hanging in regards to Spartan Games stuff and Adepticon......

Godspeed Old Friend....

Hi Guys, Its been a while.  I have not been posting because I have been pretty burned out.  There has been a load of drama in the Spartan community and that has culminated with Spartan closing their doors on Friday August 25th.  Its a mixed bag of emotions for me.  I am sad to see the company I worked hard for go.  I am at the same time relieved as a lot of things are now off my shoulders.  I am going to continue to pay and love the games Spartan made.  I am going to go on a bit of a rant though so if you don't want to read it stop here.  I have some pent up thoughts and emotions and they need to come out before I can move on and focus my efforts on Infinity and Corvus Belli's new game Arestia.  I am going to be posting here and there about my Infinity exploits so I will be around now after this Hiatus.  Ok...time to vent.....

Adepticon: The Aftermath

Greetings all!  SeerK here once again.  It has been about a week and a half since I got home from Adepticon and I am finally feeling normal.  I was exhausted for a couple days after, especially since I had to play catch up on several fronts. This would be why I am only posting about the convention now.  This year was very fun but at the same time extremely exhausting.  We had 6 events running this year and all of them went pretty smoothly.  I am going to list off the winners and announce the winner of the one of a kind Cortana portrait done by Sarah Campbell who is one of the 3D modelers at Studio 343.  Our Halo Event participants are all in running for this great piece of Halo memorabilia.
So lets dive into the winners and some reflections on Adepticon 2017.

New Spartan Games Podcast: Exploding Dice Radio

Logo by Tim " Miniature Tim"  Toolen

Greetings!  SeerK here once again.  This time I am here for some shameless promotion.  A new podcast will be released later this month.  Exploding Dice Radio on the Freebooters Network is a collaboration between myself and Andy "Ruckdog" Rucker of Man Battle Stations Podcast.  Exploding Dice Radio covers Spartan Games and nothing but Spartan Games.

Ruckdog and I will be talking tactics, new releases and previews, hobbying and whatever else we can squeeze in about our favorite games made by our favorite game company.

You will be able to get new episodes via the Freebooters Podcast Network  We just got done recording the first episode.  We are in the process of getting a blog set up, but you can send questions to edrpodcast@gmail.com.

We will have a new episode every month.  Our release dates are not set in stone as it will be posted when the network puts it into the rotation schedule.  I will post updates here and Ruckdog will be posting updates on the podcasts blog and over at Man Battlestations.

Next time I will be delving into game design.  I am in process of writing it and its taking longer than I thought it would.  I planned on it being a multi part series, but man we are really going down the rabbit hole.  We are also 2 weeks away give or take from Adepticon.  I will be doing daily updates and pictures dumps here and on Twitter.  If signal is good enough or we have wi-fi I will be doing some live streams as well.

Well back to writing and painting a metric butt ton of terrain.

Until next time crush the Alliance and as always...

REMEMBER DRAMOS!!!!!!!!!

The Road to Adepticon: Webcart Closes Soon!

Hi all! SeerK here with a quick update! We are 5 days away from the closing of the Adepticon webcart.  Pre registration closes on February 24th at 5 pm CST.  There are still openings in all the Spartan Games events.  Firestorm Armada, Firestorm Planetfall, Dystopian Wars, Halo Fleet Battles, Halo Ground Commmand and The Flashpoint Amber Narrative mega battle.  The details for each event are in the links below.  You can register at www.adepticon.org.

Registration will be on site after February 24th.  Reserve your spot in Spartans Premiere events in North America! Links are below and to the right! Read on for more info!

Shiny Prizes! Halo Events Get Hooked Up!

Greetings all! SeerK here once again to talk Adeptcon.  I wanted to welcome aboard our latest sponsor.  Its official yet unofficial.  I want to send a special thanks to Ken and Rick from Studio 343 for their generous support of the Halo events at Adepticon.  If you have not seen the pictures on Facebook, we received a big box of goodies from the studio. How can you get some of this exclusive stuff?  Well you can sign up for the Halo Ground Command and Halo Fleet Battles tournaments!  Players will also have a chance at a studio exclusive piece of Artwork of Cortana.  Participants in both tournaments have a chance to win this beautiful piece of art.  A drawing will be held Sunday after the Halo Ground Command Tournament and one of the players will go home with it!

The Road to Adepticon: Primer Missions!

Greetings all!  SeerK here with your mission briefing.  The team has labored long, but we have a set of Primer missions for all our events at Adepticon.  The exception is The FSA Mega Battle also known as the Flashpoint Amber Narrative event.  Spartan Neil and I are working on that currently.  The Narrative requires much more work as it ties into the impending Flashpoint Amber Campaign.  In fact is is going to be a major pivotal event in the campaign.  The Amber system hangs in the balance.  The Schaumburg system under Kurak control as of last years Championships.  Will they be able to hold it as the Zenian League unleashes hell upon them. The Stage is set and the trap has been sprung. Be a part of history as we unveil something never before seen at Adepticon 2017.............but first lets look at those Primer Missions!

The Year in Review

Greetings all.  Its December 31st.  That means 2016 is coming to an end.  The crew and I are getting together tonight for a big party to usher out 2016.  It has been a year of extremes.  There have been epic highs and some pretty epic lows. Other than a decent paying job and meeting my future wife, it has been kind of an Empire strikes back kinda year.   The Spartan community is at a low point while the Infinity community is growing and has had some pretty awesome stuff happen this year. This has me in  a weird spot.  I am part of a community that has momentum and is growing at a rapid pace.  It is full of positivity and generally speaking a really good bunch of players.  It has a company that actively supports its community by going to shows and having a very tight and active tournament scene.  On the other hand the energy and momentum has kind of gone out of the Spartan community sails.  There is a lot of uncertainty and a lot of ill will from the player base right now.  There are signs of life and I hope this means the energy of 2 years ago makes a resurgence. Lets take a look back and I will have some resolutions as well as some stuff I would like to see in 2017.

The Road to Adepticon: The Schaumburg Beach Head Planetfall GT

Greetings all!  SeerK here once again to talk Adepticon.  As you know we have six Spartan Games events at Adepticon this year.  Halo Fleet Battles, Halo Ground Command, Dystopian Wars, Firestorm Armada and Firestorm Planetfall are all on the menu.  In this Installment we are discussing Firestorm Planetfall, but first I wanted to announce our latest sponsor! Gamemat.EU joins us this year as a sponsor.  They will be supplying support for our Halo and Planetfall events in the form of Terrain.  They produce high quality resin terrain and Game Mats. The Schaumburg Beach Head returns for its second year at Adepticon.  We have some changes in format this year so lets take a look!

State Of The Union

Greetings all!  SeerK here and I am going to get a little philosophical.  Last week was quite an adventure.  You may say, “of course it was you went to the Nova Open!”  My response sadly would be no I didn’t.  I was unable to attend Nova due to some circumstances I would rather not go into, other than say I had to attend a Funeral.  We had a lot of setbacks with our planned trip.  It is setbacks I want to talk about.  Setbacks and a malaise that has gripped the community. Players and Spartan fans grumble about it, but nobody is really talking about the fact a lot of established communities and play groups seem to be dwindling in size to the point they cease to be.  I want to talk about it a bit, at least my take on it.  Join me won’t you.

I am going to use the local scene as my first example.  Things die down during the summer around here.  It doesn’t really matter what game it is.  Infinity is catching on and we ran a league this summer, but we only had 6 players participate.  Others are starting to play now that summer is winding down and people are itching to play again.  We have not done a whole lot of Firestorm Armada or Planetfall in the local are this summer.  Halo is pretty much not a thing here in Lansing.  I am going to be trying to change that, but the player base is kind of tuckered out.

I am hearing about this from a lot of places.  Attendance at The Nova Open was lackluster say for the build and play tournament.  It makes me worry a bit about the North American Championships at Adepticon this year.  I think we are seeing our first real community wide rough spot.  This is going to be a major test for Spartan.  The only communities that seem to be growing fast and gaining momentum are the Halo related ones.  They have a feel like FSA when 2.0 came out.  

I think this is from a combination of things.  First and foremost I do not think the Vanguards are getting out there enough and in the right way.  Demo’s days and such get people into the game, but you have to be more involved than that.  If you cannot make it up to the shop on a weekly bases to help foster a growing community you should not be stepping up to lead it.  There is a lack of follow though.  There is also a lack of follow through on Spartans part.  We hear about stuff in the pipeline and plans for the future, but we are not seeing them come to life.  This has hurt Spartans credibility and the communities trust in them.  That is not a good thing.

Spartan is getting better and improving though.  Official play kits for the games and a marked increase in convention attendance is a good start.  The planning for shows and conventions is months in advance and they need somebody dedicated to doing it if they want to really get out there and get the community fired up.  They need somebody in the United States to do this.

The apparent supply problem has a bit to do with Spartan and more to do with the Distributors that shops use.  Golden Distribution is pretty much the only reliable one for Spartan product.  Most shops tend to use Alliance, who is terrible in my opinion, Southern Hobby and ACD.  I know Spartan has been working with the latter two to get products in and out to the players.  Shop owners will not carry stuff if there is no community to support it though.  It is a big investment getting a new game on the shelf.  This is where the Vanguards and local community cheerleaders come in.  

Keep the community going and growing with follow through and regular attendance.  I know it is disheartening when people don’t show up.  I have gone to game nights and been the only person there for weeks. I still went though.  Sometimes you have to be the beacon to get things going.  I know real life is busy, but if you want a community to flourish, you have to put in the extra effort.

So to sum up.  Spartan needs to overhaul the Vanguard program, they need to kick some of the rule sets in the pants and follow through in a timely manner.  They also need a dedicated Event Coordinator in the United States.  The supply issues could be solved with their own warehouse here, but in lew of that they need to continue to work with the distributors to keep products in stock and restock regularly.

This is really dependent on all of us getting out there and getting our communities rallied and playing.  Not only playing, but buying stuff.  That’s what shops want to see.  Players buying locally, not on the internet.  I am not going to get into my view of internet only vendors, that’s a whole different post.

So join me in getting the community back on track and growing again.  It’s going to be tough, but if we want to see more events and have more players we really need to start working together to do it.  I am hoping Spartan plays ball as well and continues to improve.  Well that’s my two cents

Until next time, Crush the Alliance and as always…

REMEMBER DRAMOS!!!!!!!!!!

NOVA is Nigh! Adepticon Planning Has Begun!

Greetings all!  SeerK here once again.  As many of you know I will be heading to the NOVA Open next week.  For once I am not running any of the events.  I will be playing in something FSA and maybe something Infinity while i am there.  My primary purpose is to award the top two winners of the FSA GT their golden tickets to The Schaumburg Prime Offensive North American Firestorm Armada Championships.  The winners have guaranteed spots in North Americas premiere Firestorm Armada event! Adepticon is quickly shaping up to be bigger and better than last year!

Adepticon 2016: The Aftermath!

Man what a weekend!  Adepticon has come and sadly gone.  It was awesome seeing everybody and meeting new people.  I wanted to post the results of the Schaumburg Prime Offensive and the Schaumburg Beach Head.  We had two sold out tournaments and some pretty fierce competition.  We also have a new North American Champion!  

I want to thank all the players who participated in both tournaments this year.  We do this for you guys and its great seeing two full events full of happy players.  I also want to thank our generous sponsors.  Spartan games, Evolution Games, Broken Egg Games and of course Adepticon for playing host.  The Adepticon staff are the unsung heros who put this whole shindig together.  Without their hard work and long hours we would not have such a great convention to play our games at.  This year was the first year for Planetfall and the 2nd year for Firestorm Armada.  Last Years Champion was on hand to defend his title, but fell to the might of the Aqans.  We have a new Champ!

Lets get to the winners!

Adepticon Updates! Tournament Schedules and Check In!

Greetings all! We are a week away from the big show and I wanted to make a couple of announcements in regards to both The Schaumburg Prime Offensive and The Schaumburg Beach Head.  We are basically done with most everything and getting it all packed up.  The crew will be arriving on Wednesday pretty much throughout the day.  Myself and a couple others will be there by noon.  We will be setting up Thursday afternoon in the main hall if anybody wants to come say hi!  This is also the prime time to ask us for practice games.  There may be some takers once we are set up and had a chance to wander a bit.

Its Official! The Schaumburg Prime Offensive That Is!

Greetings Admirals and Field Marshals.  I come to you on the Un-day with some pretty exciting news.  Four years has passed and it is February 29th, a leap year, once again.  Spellduckwrong, Dreadbeard and myself have been playtesting missions and making a boatload of terrain for Adepticon this year.  We have over 25 in our group, coming to the convention this year.  We have two sold out events and a sold out Class.  We have new logos and T-shirts on the way and some fancy new spaceships out in the form of Firestorm Taskforce.  Things are pretty sweet right now.  So what could be sweeter?  The Schaumburg Prime Offensive has been officially sanctioned by Spartan Games to be the Firestorm Armada North American Championships!

Adepticon 2016: Beach Head Primer Missions!

Greetings Admirals, Fleet Marshals and Generals!  After long last we have our Primer Pack for the First Schaumburg Beach Head!  My profuse apologies for how long it took to get this document done.  We had been waiting on word from Spartan. Spartan, as you may have seen is developing Organized play packs for the games.  It had been mentioned in the most recent Spartan blog covering Task Force, which is being released today.  The Packs were not going to be ready in time for Adepticon, so we are going with our traditional format of multi tier missions, that is you have Primary, Secondary and Tertiary objectives.  These award you tournament points.  The three Missions presented will be the missions at the tournament more or less.  since this is the first year I wanted to make sure people were able to really dial in their lists.

The missions will only change if it is found that some aspects do not work or are very unattainable.  that is they will be put through their paces by you the players and the final draft will include the tweaks and improvements.

The Schaumburg Beach Head Primer Pack is now in the side board on the blog here and on the Facebook event page!  Get practicing! We will see you at Adepticon!


Until then crush the Alliance and as always


REMEMBER DRAMOS!!!!!

Get Painting!: The Adepticon Paint Rubric!

Greetings all.  SeerK here with an update on The Schaumburg Prime Offensive and The Schaumburg Beachhead.  Tim Toolen of the Minature Tim Blog has signed on as a Sponsor of our endeavors at Adepticon 2016. He is hard at work on this years missions patch!  Tim is also coming back as the Painting judge this year.  He will be the man in charge of determining who has the best painted fleet and army for both Tournaments.

To prepare everybody for what to expect and what he will be looking for, Tim has sent me the rubric for the painting portion of the tournaments.  Painting is required by Adepticon rules.  Painting is not part of your overall score though for The Schaumburg Prime Offensive or The Schaumburg Beachhead.  The painting prize is a separate prize that all Players are eligible for.  So without further Adieu here is the Rubric for this year.


1. Is the Force Painted? Y/ N If the force is not painted to a standard minimum, it is not eligible for a painting prize. 2. Fleet Coherency: 0-3 Does the force on the table look like a fleet? Are there cohesive color choices or effects which tie the models together as a force? 3. Shading: 0-3 1 pt - "Paint by number" flat colors 2 pts - Some work done on shading. Basic dry brushing, washes etc to add some depth 3 pts - Great depth of color and/or shading effects used. 4. Details: 0-3 1 pt - A basic attempt was made to bring out detailed portions of the models. 2 pts - Further work done on detals. Shading on rivets, unit/fleet markings, perhaps further details added that weren't sculpted on the model. 3 pts - The detailed parts of the models are very well done and catch the eye. A lot of attention was paid to bringing out every major/minor detail and further added details really stand out. 5. Standout Pieces: 0-3 Do any key pieces of the army stand out on the table? 6. Subjective Points: 0-3 Was there something not covered above that impresses you about this fleet? Are there incredible details or fantastic shading? Does this force just demand to be seen from across the room? Award points for that here.


 So there you have it.  Get painting!  We are only about 70 days away from the big show!  I am hoping to have Primer Missions for The Schaumburg Beachhead up by the end of the month or beginning of February.  We are working with Spartan on this one so we want to make sure everything is done right.

That is all for now.  Stay tuned for more information!  You may have noticed a new contributor on the Admirals list.  Telarion joins the fray officially.  The Shoal Commander will be posting soon talking about Aquans.  He was the #1 Aquan Admiral on the Spartan Games Community Warlog this past year.  So stay Tuned!


Until next time crush the Alliance and as always


REMEMBER DRAMOS!!!!!

Relthoza In Planetfall pt 3: Recon And Command

Greetings all.  SeerK back again to talk Spiders in Planetfall. Before we delve into the Helixs for this Installment I wanted to make a quick announcement.  We still have a couple spots left in both the Tournaments at Adepticon 2016.  We have primer missions up for The Schaumburg Prime Offensive, but not the Schaumburg Beachhead.  This is Primarily because we are working directly with Spartan on the Planetfall missions.  The process is a bit slower, but it will be worth the wait.  Stay tuned as I will hopefully be able to make the full Official Announcement very soon.
 In this installment we are going to be taking about the, in my opinion, "big Guns" in the Relthoza army.  That is the Recon Helix.  I also want to discuss some of the newly released helix's, namely the Command helix and what it means for the Relthoza Army.  This new unit is literally a game changer.  The Relthoza have been growing in strength with each new release and this feels like a culmination that signals the army almost being "complete". Planetfall has been slowly but surely growing and improving and the future is looking bright. Lets take a look at these two Helix's

Ever Forward: The Year End Reflection

2015, has been quite a year.   We have seen a lot of change and a lot of growth.  On the blog, the

Podcast and in the community in general.  I have actually been pretty deep in thought about a lot of things as the year comes to a close, about my personal life and the community at large.

We saw lots of releases this past year.  Planetfall helix's, New ships and the big release of Halo.  Spartan Games made Planetfall at their first North American convention.  They came to the mother of all games conventions Gencon.  I think this exposure was really good as there are rumblings of more things to come in the coming new year.  More shows and better community support.  Hell, just in the past 5 months Spartan has really overhauled the vanguard program and made it better.  I happen to know that more changes are on the way and they are exciting to say the least.

We saw big growth in the Firebase Delta Podcast.  We have been on hiatus the past month or so, but will be returning strong in 2016.  The technical issues have been fixed or are in process of getting fixed.  We will be back and stronger than ever, bringing you coverage of your favorite Spartan Games.  The blog has been at a good spot, but I want to grow it.  Some new faces will be around, making posts in 2016.  We will be expanding coverage to other games.  I will be able to focus on FSA, Planetfall and some Halo.  I am also hoping this means I will have more content.  I plan on doing at least one post a week on the same day every week.

  Adepticon 2015 was a great success and the support from the community was awesome.  Our first year there has lead to a second with growth.  Our endeavor known as The Schaumburg Prime Offensive has grown quite a bit we gained some space and are now up to 32 players from 24.  We also added the Planetfall tournament to the mix this year, which sold out quick and now has added space.

I joined the FSA Playtest and have been helping shape the game for the future.  The rest of the guys are helping improve Planetfall and so far have been slowly bringing the game around.  I am looking forward in the coming year to all the FSA and Planetfall stuff that is coming out.


Well it's been one hell of a year and I am glad it is now behind me.  There was a lot of change, some of it bad, but most of it was good.  The benefits shall be reaped in the coming year.  2016 should prove to be as interesting as 2015.  There are things brewing and the anticipation is killing me.

2015.....WITNESS!!!!!!!!!!



see you on the flip side



REMEMBER DRAMOS!!!!!!!!!

Merry Christmas!

From everybody at The Waygate, Merry Christmas, Happy Yule, Happy Hanukkah ( even though it ended on the 14th).  The Holiday season is always full of joy and frustration.  Remember to sit back and just relax.  The WayGate staff will be having a festive brunch today and celebrating with friends as well as family.


We are down to 4 slots in the Schaumburg Prime Offensive!  We also have 3 more slots in the Schaumburg Beachhead! Sign up before they disappear!

I will be doing 2 more posts this year.  I am trying to get the next part of the Planetfall Relthoza series done and by January 31st I will have our year in review.  After that I plan on buckling down and getting on a regular weekly posting schedule.  I want to be more consistent in bringing you coverage of events, releases and the groups musings on the games we play.





Until next time....


Merry X-Mas!!!!

Building A Better Community: The Cheerleader

A couple months back I wrote about building a better game community.  I kind of touched on come different ways and things that needed to be in place to help sustain a community after you built it up.  I wanted to expand on one particular topic, one that is probably the most important and possibly the most dubious position to hold.  That is the roll of the community "Cheerleader".